


it's too cold here for you now

by a_venoir



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Beach!AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-12 20:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18018071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_venoir/pseuds/a_venoir
Summary: Sehun was the shore that Jongin always returned to.





	it's too cold here for you now

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to lj [here](https://slipintoadream.livejournal.com/5206.html)
> 
> Title from Sweater Weather by the Neighbourhood.

The weather has been unusually cold for late August, and as the beach season comes to an end, fewer and fewer people visit the beach each day. But Sehun welcomes the lack of people, because it feels like the beach is being returned to him. Unlike the tourists that visit, Sehun knows the beach. He knows it through the years and the seasons and he's the only one that belongs there.

He watches a hermit crab scuttle along the shore as he wiggles his toes into the sand.

“So,” starts Jongin as he drags on the strings of his sweatshirt. The moonlight catches the metal fasteners at the end of each string, and Sehun’s eyes follow the glowing shapes.

He watches as Jongin pulls the hood tighter around his neck, before he looks out to the ocean. “So,” he echoes.

The waves fold into the beach, and Sehun rakes his fingers across the sand. Some of the grains slip underneath his fingernails.

“It might be getting too cold to come to the beach,” Jongin says.

Sehun pulls his hands into his lap, wiping the sand off against his jeans.

 

 

 

Sehun likes the beach during the winter.

He doesn’t burn like he always does in the summer, when each red blotch is a mark of punishment for every time he plays in the waves.

He thought that the beach was too cold as a child. But then he grew accustomed to the chills from long hours spent on the beach when his parents’ angry yells were too loud to sleep through.

Still, he has grown to like the summers too.

Every summer, Jongin comes down to his uncle’s cabins to help with odd jobs, until the fall when he drifts back to Seoul. Even if it’s temporary, it’s nice to have some company when exploring the caves at the far end of the beach or swimming in the ocean when the sun is just starting to set.

Jongin comes into Sehun’s life like the waves on the shore, and maybe that’s why Sehun never expects him to stay.

Yet, just like the waves, he returns summer after summer, and Sehun begins to think that Jongin and his 30 SPF sunscreen make the season a bit more bearable.

 

 

 

Sehun likes working part time at the cabins owned by Jongin’s uncle because he always knows when Jongin’s coming back. The job is too relaxed for shifts; instead, notes are scribbled on a wall calendar and “Jongin gets here” is scrawled over this week.

Jongin returns a few days earlier this year.

He can hear Jongin’s deep laughter when he pushes open the door to the office at lunchtime that day. When their eyes catch, Jongin’s laughter gives way to a bright grin. And Sehun smiles back when Jongin saunters over.

Jongin shoves a paper bag into his hands.

“What’s this?” Sehun mumbles, reaching into the bag to draw out a keychain of Namsan Tower.

“A souvenir.”

“But Jongin, you _live_ in Seoul… it’s not like you were on a vacation…”

And Jongin laughs as he throws an arm around Sehun’s neck, pulling him in for a hug.

 

 

 

The summer rain is a refreshing contrast to the heat that radiates from the sand, so when Sehun notices the first droplets on his skin, he stops to lean into the rain. The wind catches the trash bag in his grip and the plastic ripples outward angrily. He lets his eyes fall shut, concentrating on the droplets peppering his face, when he feels a hand on his arm.

The hand is warm and Sehun shivers.

“You’ll catch a cold.”

And it’s really all so Jongin. It’s just like him to worry about the rain, but run into the ocean during the last days of summer, letting the waves splash against him until his lips are blue and his words are reduced to teeth-chattering.

Sehun lets Jongin tug him towards a cabin nearby. It’s one of the older ones, a small building of salt-stained wooden boards and window frames crusted with sand, and the fact that it stands a bit further apart from the other buildings makes it a perfect refuge for two teenagers avoiding work.

Their footsteps sink into the beach, and the wet sand is heavy on Sehun’s pant cuffs.

By the time they stand in the cabin, slightly breathless and splattered with rain, their dampened clothes feel too clingy and heavy and cold.

“Should we change into dry clothes?” suggest a pair of full lips, and Sehun’s own thin lips press together as he searches for a response.

He remembers the swimsuits and clothes they stashed away for those lazily hot afternoons when they sneak away from work to cool down in the ocean.

So Sehun nods. He turns to pull off his shirt, and it’s bunched around his elbows when he feels hands against his shoulder blades.

The hands that grip him are hot. So hot it’s almost painful.

Sehun shudders, and the hands move with him. The moments are gathering into seconds before he finally wiggles an arm free and the t-shirt pools to the ground.

“Jongin, what are you-“

They’re friends and they have been friends for as long as Sehun can remember, but maybe it’s because of those years that Jongin’s hands feel natural on him now.

“Can I?” Jongin’s voice is low and breathy as his hands slip up to trace Sehun’s hairline. Fingers lightly drag along the hairs at the back of Sehun’s neck and suddenly Sehun’s pulse thunders in his ears as Jongin’s breath flares against his back.

He nods, and Jongin presses a kiss lightly between his shoulder blades.

And then fingertips begin to sear his ribs and Jongin’s mouth burns when it latches on the nub of a vertebrae at the base of his neck. And each pull of Jongin’s lips has him gasping even as he leans back into the warmth for more.

 

 

 

The next day Jongin appears at Sehun’s house with a backpack and an old cooler.

“What are you doing here?” Sehun asks, rubbing the remaining sleep from his eyes.

The cooler has faded from whatever colour it used to be to a pale orange, and “Kim” is scrawled along the side in permanent marker.

“I thought maybe we could go on a picnic?” Jongin’s voice brings Sehun’s gaze back to his face, and Jongin flushes under the sudden scrutiny.

The walk to the beach is short. The cooler swings between them and more than once it knocks into Sehun’s thigh. Sehun offers to carry it for him, but Jongin stubbornly refuses.

Instead, Jongin passes it to his other hand, using the hand between them to brush against Sehun’s hand until their fingers become intertwined. 

Later, their knees knock together as they sit between the dunes, trying to shield their sandwiches from the gritty wind. There’s sand in the fruit salad, but Sehun still picks a few cubes of watermelon from the tupperware.

And even later, their teeth knock together as Sehun giggles into Jongin’s mouth and Jongin’s hand drags up Sehun’s back, pulling his shirt along with it.

 

 

 

“My uncle is selling the cabins,” Jongin says as he digs his fingers into the beach. He cups a handful of the warm sand and lets it spill through his fingers.

Sehun can’t think of anything to say except- “Oh.” And then again. “Oh.” He pulls his legs to his chest and runs his hands down them briskly.

“Are you cold?” Jongin asks, raising a hand to block out the mid-afternoon sun.

Sehun shakes his head.

“He got an offer for the land,” Jongin continues as he looks to the buoys bobbing, markers that signal the divide between the shallow and deeper waters.

When Sehun turns toward the sea, he squints his eyes; he doubts that Jongin can really see the buoys at all with the sun as bright as it is.

“They’re going to pull them down. Rebuild. You know. Beachfront property and condos and all that.”

The wind picks up, and when the remaining sand trickles from Jongin’s hand, it blows against Sehun’s salt-water slicked legs.

“So next summer, I won’t…” Jongin leaves the sentence hanging, trailing off as gazes back over the expanse of ocean, and Sehun is left to finish the thought.

This fall, Jongin is entering a dance school in Seoul. One with painfully long hours, but a high rate of successful graduates. And even with financial aid and loans, Jongin will probably still end up working several part time jobs to make rent.

It’s a far cry from the plans they made summers ago, and he wonders when things changed.

When Sehun was fifteen, Jongin said they’d go to college together and share a cheap flat with more cracks than plaster, and Sehun had wondered if they’d fight over space on the couch they same way they always did.

At sixteen Sehun asked his parents for a television for his birthday. His parents were reluctant, asking why he needed one when he had a computer. But he couldn’t hook up Jongin’s xbox to his computer.

Now, at seventeen, Sehun plans on applying to the closest college because he can’t afford to live away from home without a scholarship, and he wonders if he should finally sell the television monitor gathering dust in the back of his garage.

“Oh,” Sehun says as he rubs the sand from his calves.

There are four weeks left before Jongin leaves for Seoul once again.

 

 

 

The first signs of winter start appearing mid August. It starts with _why were you late_ but quickly progresses to _why haven’t I seen you recently_ and _why didn’t you answer my texts._

Sehun doesn’t know what to say. Sometimes he lays listlessly on his bed, listening to his phone gather text messages. The beeps of his phone create a cacophony that he doesn’t understand or want.

He likes Jongin, he really does. But he doesn’t see why the changes in their relationship lead to Jongin seeking his consent through texts like _what do you think I should get? iced tea or lemonade?_

Maybe Sehun doesn’t really understand relationships. His mother used to say he was a winter child. _Ice prince_ , she sometimes called him as she smoothed his hair and pressed kisses to his nose and cheeks.

It’s a nickname she still uses, although now it’s often paired with adjectives like _heartless_ and _unfeeling_.

The fight begins when Jongin finds Sehun’s phone next to his bed, all his texts read and none of them replied to. At first Jongin’s tone is merely surprised and a little hurt. But then Sehun responds defensively and the words escalate rapidly into clipped sentences and muttered curses that are secretly meant to be heard.

It peaks when Sehun uses the word “needy” and Jongin counters with “moody and unpredictable.”

It ends when Jongin’s out of complaints and Sehun’s out of patience.

“Sehun, how can you be so cold,” Jongin bites out. He burrows his hands in his hair just to keep them from forming fists.

And, “it’s not like we’re dating anyway,” responds Sehun.

He’s half hoping Jongin will tell him he’s wrong. But instead Jongin’s mouth stretches into a sad smile, lips painfully thin. Arms that were coiled with anger now fall listless to his side.

“You’re right,” he says. He laughs, and Sehun has never felt Jongin drift so deep out before.

Jongin leaves Sehun’s room quietly.

Then he ignores all of Sehun’s text messages for a week. Sehun wishes that they hadn’t wasted a week of the precious time they have left, but he doesn’t complain because it’s what he deserves.

(And when Sehun lies in bed, awake during the limbo hours of late night/ early morning, he rereads Jongin’s texts and wonders if he decided on iced tea or lemonade or if he ended up blowing a week’s allowance on the rare collection of Led Zeppelin he had been eyeing in the window of the used CD store.)

 

 

 

Sehun finds Jongin wandering between the cabins, and they’re awkward at first because neither knows if the other is still angry.

“I’m sorry,” and Sehun twists his shirt between his hands. The stripes crumple, and when the pattern folds like this they look disconnected, each stripe leading a dead end in every wrinkle.

Jongin’s thumbs smooth over his knuckles, coaxing them free of his shirt, and when he pulls Sehun’s hands away, the fabric flattens out and the stripes become whole again.

“It’s okay.”

Sehun leans forward into Jongin’s neck, still unable to meet his eyes. Jongin smells of salt and sweat and lemon-scented furniture polish, and Sehun mumbles apologies against his neck while Jongin speaks reassurances into his hair.

 

 

 

Sehun isn’t sure what to do in the last days of summer.

So he alternates between following Jongin around as he gets the cabin furniture ready to take to the flea market and ignoring Jongin’s texts as hides in his room playing Diablo.

On the days he sticks to Jongin’s side, he follows so closely that he often bumps into Jongin’s back or clips his hips on tables and door frames. He sees Jongin frown when he stumbles down the steps after him or clings to the back of his t-shirts, but Jongin never tells him to stop.

It’s revolting to cling to someone else like this and Sehun can’t stand himself.

On the days he stays at home, he stuffs his phone underneath his pillow and tries not to notice the way his bed vibrates every time he gets a text.

_Jongin’s leaving. Leaving leaving leaving,_ pounds in his head again and again.

(But he always knew he wouldn’t be able to keep Jongin.

“Moody and unpredictable” burn in his mind, and he adds “careless” and “burden” to the list of reasons he shouldn’t ask him to stay.)

 

 

 

Sehun’s used to the cold. He feels the chill permanently seeped into his bones, but Jongin is different. While Sehun burns in the sun, Jongin thrives.

A summer boy can’t live in the cold.

It’s fitting, thinks Sehun, that they would start on the beach and end here too. First pulling Jongin to the shore and then letting him wash away.

So when Jongin asks if _it’s over_ near the end of August, Sehun chokes down phrases until he’s left with a single word:

“Yes.”

Sehun turns so that Jongin can’t see the tears weighing on his eyelashes, and as Jongin gazes toward the horizon, the waves pull away, leaving shells and pebbles stranded in the shoals.  



End file.
